Magocracy City-State Structure

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Hello all,

So in my world, there is a gnomish Magocracy city-state called Das Hoofdstad. My issue is simple: I know the city is ruled by 8 guild-like Sorcerer Houses (well, probably more wizards than Sorcerors but still), one for each School of Magic. The Houses act both as schools of magic, focusing on their own school of magic, but they're also supposed to form not only the government but the bureaucracy as well. My question is this: how would they divide up the tasks of ruling a city-state? How would that change when Das Hoofdstad conquers a large swath of territory?

Here's a little more background, for coming up with ideas:

Das Hoofdstad is set in the expansive swamp-lands of the delta of a major river, populated by gnomes (in this campaign, gnomes are all inherently magical) and also a significant minority of humans. It was once the capital of a continent-spanning empire of a vast people descended in equal parts from humans and gnomes, but the empire fell. The city-state is built upon the ruins of the capital of the empire. It extends it's control along all the delta, and a good bit of swamp-land west of the delta, mostly gnomes.

The 8 Houses theme themselves on the first 7 metals to be discovered, plus Arsenic to make up the number: Copper, Tin, Gold, Silver, Iron, Lead, and Mercury. These are, respectively, the Evocation, Conjuration, Illusion, Enchantment, Divination, Abjuration, Necromancy, and Transmutation.

In the second playable age of my campaign setting (I have two "ages" so that I can play in either 4th edition or 3.5/5th edition and to explain the difference in how magic feels in each edition), the age that represents the "Higher" levels of magic in 3.5 and 5th editions compared to 4th, Das Hoofdstad has expanded almost 10x it's original size, taking over feuding-Italian-principalities-equivalent, independent-swiss-kingdoms-equivalent, medieval-tolerant-spain-equivalent, Persian-Pirate-sicily-like-island, and parts of super-noble-knights-France-equivalent and rural-peaceful-farming-land. They have also fought a war of epic proportions with medieval-united-Scandinavia-but-with-more-ambition that left the unconquered part of peaceful-farming-land more like WW1-no-mans-land.

[VoxRationis]

How high-level are the key casters of each House? What kinds of spells can they be assured of getting consistently? How consistently? In short, what are the capabilities of each House?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Highest level would be level 10-ish. Higher than that is practically unheard of. The normal high-level leaders would be level 7-8 full casters. The second rank (like, ministers and headmaster) would be level 4-6, and most of the rest are 1-3, but are numerous.

[sktarq]

Evocation-probably dominate military possibly in a dominance conflict with the conj school.

Transmutation-and Enchantment vying for power in the trade management teams with some divination for QC and weights check

Abjure and Div on the cops and records

Evoc and Trans would be in charge of infrastructure

Enchantment would wind itself everywhere via politics

Necromancy-takes care of the dead, military reserves, possible mine or underwater work, possible health in general

I'd suggest looking at oxford and cambridge with how the various collages deal with internal vs university wide issues - perhaps a bit o Inspector Morse/Lewis for plot ideas too.

[MrZJunior]

My understanding is that these sorts of things were fairly arbitrary in the actual middle ages. For instance one of the houses might be given the right to collect a tax on all fish sold in the market, while another might have the tax on all bread. They would probably have some sort of council which decides what laws and regulations need to be put in place, and then the actual enforcement of those rules and regulations would be delegated to one of the houses, possibly with the right to collect a new tax to help pay for enforcement.